Learning to Letter with Alex Dandridge

One day while at the Sprott School, Alex Dandridge, BCom/18, was creating some new designs in her bullet journal. Working in the small office shared by the student mentors in Sprott’s Training and Development course (BUSI 4111), some of her peers asked what she was doing, and she explained about her hobby of lettering.

Lettering is the creation of hand drawn designs. Alex always had an interest in typography, but it wasn’t until she realized her entire Instagram feed was filled with lettering posts did she decide to try it herself. She went out to Michaels and bought some cheap markers during the summer after second year. She spent the summer practicing lettering, and by September she was ready to try her hand at a bullet journal and create an agenda for school.

“I’ve always liked typography – the arrangement of letters I always thought was really cool and mixing different fronts,” said Alex. “I used to be the kid who drew bubble letters on the top of charts in elementary school. I think that was always something that was a part of me.”

Now Alex uses her bullet journal every day.

“When I have days off, I will sit there for far too many hours than I should and just find random quotes on Pinterest and letter them. I’d say I do something with it everyday, which is kind of the point. I wanted to make it into a habit that I can sit there and do this and distress from whatever I am doing and focus on that,” Alex expressed.

Alex posts many of her creations on her Instagram account: @Alexlearns2letter. She would like to eventually digitize her lettering and make them into prints, or create chalkboard calendars to sell. She said she is sure her business degree will help her with this.

While completing her Commerce degree, Alex got involved as a Sprott student ambassador, Sprosh Fall Orientation leader, and joined the Sprott Student Management Association. She also helped with social media for Hatch, the student entrepreneurship centre run by the Carleton University Students Association.

“We did a lot of content creation. It was my semester with BUSI 4111, which was super packed and so I helped a lot behind the scenes trying to find fun infographics about entrepreneurs who made it and things like that,” explained Alex. “Once I got into the management association I did less of that and more with SSMA where I ended up doing communications.”

Being involved at Sprott provided Alex with a broad range of experiences that helped her narrow down her career interests.

“After graduating, I figured out I didn’t want to go into corporate business, so I started taking a non-profit management course at Algonquin. I had a feeling that is where I wanted to go in third and fourth year so I volunteered with Relay for Life and Shinerama, and tried to get some of those fundraising non-profit experiences,” Alex shared.

As she completes her graduate certificate in Non-profit Sector Management, Alex is working as a brand ambassador at the WE Store. She said that her lettering is something she often brings up in job interviews.